


You Are Not Bulletproof!

by josephina_x



Series: Superbros [2]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Universe, Bickering, Crime Fighting, Gen, Oops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are not bulletproof! Stop being so stupid!</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Are Not Bulletproof!

**Author's Note:**

> Title: You Are Not Bulletproof!  
> Author: [josephina_x](http://josephina-x.livejournal.com)  
> Fandom: Smallville  
> Pairing: Clark+Lex  
> Rating: G  
> Spoilers: general for the show  
> Word count: 3000+  
> Summary: You are not bulletproof! Stop being so stupid!  
> Warnings: Un-beta'd.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.  
> Comments: Yes, please! :)  
> Author's Note: Standalone. Technically, ‘second’ in the "Superbros" series. ...Because this is apparently a series now. ^_^;;  
> Prompt: Bullet Wounds

~*~*~*~*~*~

"Ow!"

"How many times do I have to tell you -- you're not bulletproof!"

"Sorry."

"I mean," " _ow!_ " "I just don't get why you have to keep flying yourself right into these--" " _OW!_ " "--hold still!" " _ow-ow-ow!_ " "--these situations like this. _There_ ," Clark said, as he finally pulled loose the shard of metal plating that had just about embedded itself into his partner-in-crime-fighting's skin. He tossed it into the plastic bucket sitting next to him, to end up alongside the deformed bullet that had come loose a lot more easily from the compromised plating itself.

"I know I'm not bulletproof, Clark," Lex said snidely. "That's what the _suit_ is-- HEY!" Lex tried to pull free, but Clark wouldn't let him, and with the worst of the dented and punctured material off of him, Clark peeled the rest of the chest plating off of him with the liberal use of heat vision and super-strength.

 _Oh my **god** , you did **not** just do that,_ Lex thought, as Clark let go of him. He stared down at his chest in horror.

“You-- you--” Lex sputtered for a moment, before he recentered himself. “You just tore my suit half-apart! Do you have _any_ idea how long that’s going to take to fix?!” 

“Yes,” said Clark, not looking sorry at all. “I cut it inside the seams on those pieces,” he pointed them out, “so you’ll just have to replace a couple of the parts to be flight-worthy again.”

Lex stared at Clark. He stared down at his chest.

He thought about all of the painful tugging and shifting and scraping that had closely preceded the peeling off of his no-longer-flight-worthy super-suit.

He looked up at Clark and glowered. “ _Why_ didn’t you do that _before?!_ ” he demanded.

“That piece of crushed metal plating was too close to your skin,” Clark told him. “If I’d used heat vision on it, I would’ve burned you, and if I’d tried to use only super-strength, I would’ve either crushed you worse along your chest and arms trying to open it up, or ended up having to tear the thing apart _completely_ to get it off you without hurting you worse.”

Lex opened his mouth and pointed a finger at Clark’s face to tell him off. ...And had to close his mouth as he couldn’t come up with any viable response to what Clark had said, other than a petulant, ‘okay, _fine_ , but it still sucks. You suck.’

He tried harder to think of something, and eventually had to lower his finger.

He settled for crossing his arms across his now-exposed-to-the-air chest and glowering at Clark petulantly from his seated position on the ground, because he _really liked_ his robotic exoskeleton suit, and Clark had still broken it. Somewhat. In order to stop the thing from crushing in his chest, which had been preventing him from breathing properly and probably cutting off his circulation somewhat, and--

...Drat, he couldn’t even be properly angry with the man for breaking one of his favorite toys. What was the world coming to?

...Wait. Hold on. Had Clark just said… “How did you know where the seams are?” Lex asked him suspiciously, because he had a flexible overlayer over top of the raw metal to smooth out the airflow, and the cloth-like material was completely opaque -- none of the seams on his suit were visible from the outside. Yes, Clark had torn it up a bit, but not that much. Not to see where he’d used his heat vision.

So there _was_ something he could at least be annoyed about. “--I thought you said that you weren’t going to X-ray my suit!” Lex protested hotly.

“I didn’t!” Clark said quickly. “Not before today, I mean,” he added, deflating a little. “You were hurt; it was reflex to scan you. And I couldn’t have gotten it off of you safely, otherwise.” Then he frowned at him, and rubbed a hand across his face. “I swear, it doesn’t even look like your people were _trying_ to fit the armor plating together properly; the seams are all wrong, they don't even overlap. It looks like a bullet would go right through that -- do they hate you or something? You need better R-and-D staff,” Lex was told.

Lex blinked at Clark, and dumbly thought, _...Armor plating?_

Clark must’ve caught something in his expression, because he brought his head up, stared at Lex with a great deal of intensity, and then started to look… angry.

“You _do_ just need better R-and-D staff... right?” Clark said, slowly.

“Uh,” Lex said quietly.

“Because you would _not_ run around Metropolis, trying to stop crime, in a robotic _suit_ that _**wasn’t**_ covered in hardened metal armor that is there to stop bullets... _**right?**_ ” Clark added, even more dangerously.

“Um,” said Lex, as he stared at Clark. And then leaned back from him a little bit as the angry look intensified.

“ _What were you **thinking!!**_ ” Clark yelled at him. “You--! _You--!!_ ” He shoved himself to his feet and paced away from him.

“It’s-- it’s armored!” Lex said. “It is! It’s got metal between me and the bullets! That counts!”

Clark rounded on him. “A thin metal sheet between you and bullets is _not_ armor!” Clark pronounced hotly. “It’s just a thin metal sheet!” he said, sounding more than a little freaked out.

“Well, it's a heck of a lot more armor than _those_ people had,” Lex pronounced with more than a little strain, as he pushed himself to his feet. Without all the servos working, the suit was darned heavy, and a lot of the power connections were routed through the chest area that Clark had all-but-destroyed in his ministrations.

“I can’t believe you tossed yourself in front of a bullet like that!” Clark said, as if he hadn’t heard him.

“That asshole shot into the crowd! I was keeping those people from being shot!”

“By getting yourself shot instead?” Clark demanded.

“I was being heroic!”

“You were being _stupid_!” Clark told him in no uncertain terms, and Lex froze. “How is you getting shot when _you_ can get hurt any better than somebody else getting shot when _they_ can get hurt!” Clark continued angrily, and Lex unfroze.

“You’re not exactly completely bulletproof, either!” Lex told him, in a firm, grim reminder. “And I don’t see _you_ not jumping in front of bullets when _you’re_ not armored up!”

Clark turned back to him and gave him a ‘what-the-hell’ look in alien. “What the heck are you talking about,” he told Lex, “ _of course_ I wear armor.”

“No, you don’t!” Lex said.

“Yes, I do!”

“Clark, I’ve _seen_ you getting dressed up in that outfit!” Lex told him, while willfully ignoring any and all cameras that might be recording this entire trainwreck of a conversation. He made a point of never watching any footage of himself and Clark, stopping crime or doing anything else together. Mostly because he was pretty sure that he looked very stupid doing it, especially upon side-by-side comparison with said really-actually-real alien hero. But the way he saw it, he figured he had a running and largely unspoken-of agreement with the citizens of Metropolis: he, Lex Luthor, would do stupid things like dress up in a robotic suit and jump in front of bullets for them. They, for their part, would never tell him how stupid he looked -- or was -- for doing it, or otherwise talk about any such thing within earshot of him.

It was a system that Lex thought worked out pretty well for all and sundry involved ...at least when Clark wasn’t the one telling him he was being stupid. Apparently, aliens that didn’t even bother to follow the general laws of physics couldn’t be expected to follow any of the piddling completely-made-up-by-humans social rules, either.

It probably wouldn’t be hitting him so hard, if this hadn’t been the first time Clark had called him stupid. But it was, so it did.

He was definitely going to be steering clear of any TV sets and internet video sites for the near-future. He did _not_ want to have to re-hear _this_ ever, let alone anytime soon.

Lex shook himself. “The studio supplies your wardrobe, and I’ve seen you put it on! There’s no armor in it! They don’t have the money in the wardrobe budget for it!” And they probably wouldn’t spend the money on it even if they did have it to spend; and they likely didn't, considering what they already shelled out for handling the wear-and-tear, maintenance, and sometimes full replacement of Clark's "official costume" of uniformly-black long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans, workboots, and longcoat, on a distressingly frequent basis -- though thoroughly unsurprising, given what Clark tended to fly around _doing_ on a daily basis. It’d be way too expensive for a local TV station to supply armor for Clark on top of that, unbelievably high show ratings or not. They weren’t even able to put out enough cash for a decent "in-the-studio" business suit for Lex as it was; he wore his own.

“That’s right; they don’t supply that,” Clark told him. “ _I_ do. --Why do you think I took the job in the first place?”

_...Wait, what?_

“I needed the money to buy the armor!”

_...Wait, **what?**_

“But… you don’t…”

“I don’t wear the armor _in the studio_ ,” Clark told him, with infinite alien patience stretched to the breaking point -- which basically came across as normal human exasperation, really. “I wear it when we’re out doing crime-fighting things. It’s way too hot to wear it under those lights.”

Too _hot?_ \--The heck?! “You jumped into hot lava and came out just fine!”

“That is an stupid internet rumor that never happened!” Clark told him testily. “Because if it _did_ , there would be a zillion pictures of me totally naked online, because there is no clothing on Earth that could possibly survive getting dunked in hot lava, and no way that somebody who saw that _wouldn’t_ take a picture of me, seeing me like that!”

“They wouldn’t if you were fast enough to get away before they caught you,” Lex pointed out, completely reasonably.

Clark groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

“And you don’t. Wear armor.” Lex said, with utter certainty.

Clark dropped his hands and looked up at him levelly.

Then he turned partway away from him and shrugged off his longcoat.

“Uh…” Lex said, as Clark tossed it onto the park bench next to them. “What are you--” and Lex practically had a heart-attack as Clark grabbed at the hem of his dark black t-shirt and pulled up.

And tossed the t-shirt on top of the longcoat over the back of the bench.

Lex stared.

...He was not seeing bare alien chest.

“...What is that?” Lex asked him faintly, because it kind of looked like...

“This. Is armor,” Clark told him, turning to face him full-on, and tapping his own chest. “High-grade, top-of-the-line, better-than-military-spec _bulletproof_ armor. It's radiation-proof. It’s good enough to stop hollow-point rounds. It’s really expensive,” Clark said, “which is why I needed this job. I couldn’t afford to buy it on just a Daily Planet salary,” he told Lex, “especially after living expenses. It costs a lot to live in the city. And even with the paycheck from _this_ job,” Clark informed him, as he turned and picked his t-shirt back up, “I wouldn’t be able to afford it if the company I buy this stuff from didn’t let me get away with paying only 50% of the materials and manufacturing cost of making it, for letting them say that their stuff is so good that even ‘Superman’ uses it.”

Lex watched Clark as he put his shirt back on.

He thought about this.

He told Clark, “You know they’re ripping you off, don’t you? _They_ should be paying _you_ to wear their stuff.”

Clark sighed deeply as he shrugged his ankle-length, dark black longcoat back on. “Lex, I’m the only one who uses this stuff. It’s _light-years_ beyond anything they’ve got in their normal product line -- and _it works_ ,” Clark said. “They test it out _a lot_ before I even get to touch it,” he added, cutting Lex off before he could protest about Clark being used as a guinea pig for untested material. “Trust me, they’re losing money on it.”

“Not if they’re using you in advertising--” Lex protested.

“I’m not in any commercials, or advertising brochures, and I’m pretty sure they don’t tell a lot of people about it ...if they tell anybody about it at all,” Clark said, with a weird look on his face as he glanced over at Lex.

“But if it works for you--”

“This stuff has to hold up against explosive rounds,” Clark told him. “It has to hold up at-speed. For the speeds _I_ move at. It has to hold up to wind shear and friction all on its own, in case whatever else I’m wearing over it gives out, _plus_ still be able to handle bullet- and shell-impacts on _top_ of that. It has to still work _in space_ , at the temperature extremes I have to deal with up there, when I go up there sometimes.”

Lex frowned at him some more. “You’re doing _space-testing_ of their stuff for them.”

“And nobody else is going to use it for that! Like that!” Clark said, throwing up his hands at him. “They’re losing money on it! And more power to them if they can manage to find a way to make it work and sell it to somebody else besides me; maybe they’ll make some of that money back!”

“They’re using you as a test subject to improve their product line!”

“Lex, the stuff _holds up_ to things like explosions. It isn’t able to _absorb_ all of the kinetic energy. If anybody else wore it, they’d probably splatter from the concussive force of the blast. It’s being made _specifically_ **for me** ,” Clark told him. “ _Nobody else_ could use it.”

Lex crossed his arms again and glowered at Clark. Because he was being taken advantage of.

“...You have no idea who is making this stuff for me,” Clark said, in an odd tone of voice.

“I bet I could find out,” Lex said belligerently, and woe to whoever the hell was taking advantage of Clark’s good nature when he did. If these people were using Clark’s ‘I’ll-get-you-for-that-Lane’ moniker in their word-of-mouth advertising, though, Lex bet he could get his sales reps to make a few discreet inquiries and find out, post-haste. And _then_ he’d--

“Please don’t,” said Clark.

...unless Clark asked him nicely, which would have him backing off in self-defense before the big alien starting pleading at him. Which was just embarrassing all around. Lex avoided situations like that like the plague, after the first (and hopefully _last_ ) time that had happened.

“ _Fine,_ ” Lex said grumpily, but he wasn’t all that happy about it.

Clark was smiling at him. It didn’t completely make all things better, but it definitely tried.

“It doesn’t exactly help if you’re only wearing a shirt,” Lex noted, because that was a major armoring malfunction, right there.

“I’m wearing stuff under the jeans, too,” Clark told him.

“No helmet,” Lex put out there.

“I can dodge super-fast. Is _your_ helmet bulletproof?” Clark said, then stopped.

Because Lex winced.

“LEX!”

“--It has to hold up to all sorts of stuff getting kicked up at top flight-speed!” Lex said hurriedly, at Clark’s glower. “That includes small rocks! Lead bullets are softer than rocks!”

Clark eyed him suspiciously for a long time, without saying anything.

“Fine.”

Lex let out a slow breath.

“You’re still grounded, though.”

_Erk!_

“What?!” Lex yelped, because _what?!?_ “You can’t do that!”

“--Or flighted. The opposite of being on-the-ground-and-getting-shot-at, until you’ve got armor that works. You can dodge a lot better mid-air; I’ll take the ground,” Clark continued, talking right over him.

“...Oh,” said Lex.

Clark frowned at him. “‘Oh’?” He tilted his head at Lex. “Wait, what did you _think_ I meant?”

“Uh,” said Lex intelligently. “Nothing.” Because trying to explain that he thought Clark had meant locking him up in the LuthorCorp Towers and out of his suit until his techs managed to armor it up to alien safety standards? Was not a thing he wanted to do. Or encourage. Or bring to mind as maybe even possibly being a thing that might in any way, shape, or form be possible to do. Because that would suck.

Clark eyed him again, and looked like he was about to pester Lex on it.

Lex changed the subject. “You actually _get paid_ to do heroic stuff, saving people?”

Clark clearly halted mid-thought and blinked.

“What?” he said. “Uh, no.” He looked at Lex askance. “I get paid to come in the studio and talk on-the-air about things with you in front of the cameras. And wear their wardrobe-stuff when I’m out doing stuff. And to tell them where I am when stuff happens sometimes so that they have a better chance of filming it. ...You don’t get paid?”

“Uh...” said Lex. “...maybe?” He’d meant to look over the contract -- meaning: _actually read it_ \-- after that completely unacceptable snafu on the first day, and then slow-roast his legal staff over every offending line ...except that he’d successfully browbeaten Wardrobe into letting him dress however he wanted without too much effort, and then he’d gotten all distracted by Clark and his Clark-ness, and then he'd stopped caring so much about the few piddling little annoyances of the situation because _Clark_ , and then forgotten about it entirely.

“I guess you _wouldn’t_ really need the money, would you?“ Clark mused, then gave Lex a curious look. “If you aren't doing it because of the money, then why _are_ you doing it?”

Lex thought about saying ‘...good PR?’ except that was lame, and only barely not-as-lame as saying, ‘because it’s a good excuse to hang out with you for an hour or so each week, and to randomly at other times fly around being heroic and stupid and doing heroically-stupid things with you?’

Instead, he stood where he was, and wrapped his arms around his chest, and he didn’t say a word.

Clark stood there, and looked at him intently.

And Clark slowly began to smile that angelic devilish smile.

Lex felt his ears heat up.

~*~*~*~*~*~


End file.
